New Look for Website

[Eclipse]

The "Learn More" link is working now, but I don't think giving the history as the first page is a good idea.

[ProdigalJim]

Pylon's right on...

It's obvious from comparing the mechanics of the old site (which you can still see at the Members' site) with the new one that they went to something templated and off-the-shelf...probably to make it faster and easier to manage all the site content.

But they gave up a lot of flexibility. I think the News page looks awful...there are, indeed, as many posters have noted, lots of places that intuitively feel as if they should be clicked for a deeper dive, and then you get nothing.

The social-media and mobile stuff is on the lower right, "below the fold" for many screensizes, particularly laptops. At least before it was upper right.

And the whole thing feels like a paean to Good Ole' CAP...instead of Look At CAP Today. Any casual user who goes to this site to learn more about CAP and to explore an impulse to join would be very frustrated: way, way too many clicks. And most of the headings feel too "generic" to be totally explanatory. That's what you would expect with an "out-of-the-box" web-hosted content system. This really isn't much more than Intuit on steroids, and it shows.

FWIW, we've been doing a project at work since late spring to refresh our website...not even the functionality, just the UI, look and feel. It probably won't launch until summer. There will be people who love it and people who hate it, but the result will, at least, have been researched, focus-group tested, and crafted with lots of specific use-cases in mind.

I'm getting the sense here this was "Hey, our website is too content-heavy to manage on our own. My brother-in-law just did a website for bike shop with these guys at SiteViz...it was really easy, and he didn't need any programming skills. We should call them." I'm probably over-exaggerating, but just a little...

[Eclipse]

The social-media and mobile stuff is on the lower right, "below the fold" for many screensizes, particularly laptops.

Where it belongs...

We don't need "gee-whiz", we need content, and no one with 1/2 a clue is rolling their own HTML anymore, especially if they don't have paid staff, there is just no reason to do it.

And if you want to see "stark", "cookie-cutter", just look to FB or Twitter - not exactly creative, but people seem to still use it.

Once you get past the basics (like a decent graphic edit) content is king.  Clear and concise shows you mean business.

[jimmydeanno]

But they gave up a lot of flexibility. I think the News page looks awful...there are, indeed, as many posters have noted, lots of places that intuitively feel as if they should be clicked for a deeper dive, and then you get nothing.

Not nit-picking here, but the CMS they were using for the grunge site had little to no flexibility.  There was a lot of "cheating the system" to get it to do things they wanted to.  It really was pretty horrible. 

[Pylon]

It's not that they link to bad/blank pages, it's that they don't link anywhere at all. It's just a static picture saying the names of our three missions.

And it's clearly because our missions are self-explanatory.  "Emergency Services" obviously means we offer ambulance rides, 24-hour health hotlines for nurse consults, and shelter and supplies for families displaced by fires.  Right? 


And "Cadet Programs" must be self-explanatory to the public, too, since we don't offer an explanation of Cadet Programs until you're at minimum (assuming you click the right links) 3 clicks deep from the homepage.  Because the public knows that our cadet program does that same thing as cadets at the military academies and ROTC.   Right?  We're a military entrance program, right?   And we pay for a free ride to college, right?

[ProdigalJim]

The social-media and mobile stuff is on the lower right, "below the fold" for many screensizes, particularly laptops.

Once you get past the basics (like a decent graphic edit) content is king.  Clear and concise shows you mean business.

Couldn't agree more. I've paid my mortgage for the past 28 years making content. But I see less content here than on the old site...and the presumption (which I'll admit, is a dangerous thing) was that this was because the cookie-cutter CMS they've adopted makes it even less appealing to use than the evidently inflexible CMS they used previously.

Overall, this is a less-rich experience than the old site was...although a bit cleaner.

[ProdigalJim]

And it's clearly because our missions are self-explanatory.  "Emergency Services" obviously means we offer ambulance rides, 24-hour health hotlines for nurse consults, and shelter and supplies for families displaced by fires.  Right? 


And "Cadet Programs" must be self-explanatory to the public, too, since we don't offer an explanation of Cadet Programs until you're at minimum (assuming you click the right links) 3 clicks deep from the homepage.  Because the public knows that our cadet program does that same thing as cadets at the military academies and ROTC.   Right?  We're a military entrance program, right?   And we pay for a free ride to college, right?

Exactly. A cleaner, but less-rich experience. Not good for us, as we're trying to get people to understand who we are, what we do, and how they might benefit from working with us.

[wuzafuzz]

GREAT SCOTT!  That banner image is awful.  I felt better about my total 2010 taxes than that graphic.

I agree the look is a bit cleaner.  The old site was busy enough to drive a MySpace fanatic nuts.  But the new site fails miserably at "selling" CAP to anyone who doesn't already know something about it.  The template is fine, just add meaningful content!

Why can't we seem to get out of our own way?  Sigh...

[Smokey]

But the link for "Already a member?" to get to the member site doesn't work.  Figures!!!

[ßτε]

But the link for "Already a member?" to get to the member site doesn't work.  Figures!!!

Yes it does. You just need to "Click here" where it says "Click here".

[Smokey]

Ah yes...you are right that unless you get it exactly on the small print...it wont work.

[JC004]

What Pylon said.  They need to ditch this CMS and draw on the talent base available from the membership.  I could have implemented a far better CMS in less time than this mess took when they created gocivilairpatrol, and without that cost and proprietary system lock-in.  I'm sure a good team of members could do the very same.

[Pylon]

Bottom line:   Content rules.  This site lacks it.


Good content helps:
-- compel site visitors to action (donating, joining, subscribing to updates, etc.)
-- substantially improve search engine ranking
-- make the organization look credible to the industry (in our case, government & the AF) and the press
-- press and media understand the organization when they write stories about us (most reporters will at least Google subjects in their stories to learn background info)

The site's CMS could have been better had they allowed experienced members to develop it for them, as JC004 suggested, but since they obviously already paid money for this current redesign, it'll be good enough for now and has the capability to be reorganized.


Solution: Hire a good copywriter to create proper landing pages and content to the site, and it will be okay enough going forward.   But if NHQ leaves the site organized and written as-is, and it will make our organization look like a bad joke.

[JC004]

Seriously?  No browser auto-detect on the feed?  COME ON.  This thing needs a LOT of polish.  It's nice that the Flash disaster has gone poof but the little things that add up in web development aren't there - like at all.  I have a checklist that my company uses that is a couple hundred points.  It makes sure all these sort of things are in place.  Clearly whatever company this is needs that. 

I've studied the 200 largest non-profits' web sites extensively and did a lot of research with those on projects that I am doing.  (some things yet to come, too)  Most of the good stuff from those type of sites is simply not there.  A good team of members with a list like I have could get that fixed up in no time.  It's a waste to put this all on a company that doesn't know what they're doing and doesn't care about the organization.

[sardak]

I wanted to stay out of this but...

The biggest problem I see is that our three missions have been relegated to stamp sized images with titles in a lower corner without links to descriptions of the programs. Useless.

The message from the National Commader addresses our 67th anniversary - which occurred two years ago. The current letter has been posted in eServices, so it would have been easy to get the most current version of the General's annual message.

Her message also contains the oft-repeated, but grossly erroneous line that CAP "handles 90 percent of inland search and rescue missions..." She may have written that but I think it's more likely that someone edited out the rest of the correct phrase "as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center." That kind of deflates the boast. The "official tagline" posted on the PA section of the website contains the correct wording. On the other hand, the CAP Fact Sheet on the PA page added "and other agencies" after AFRCC. Again, not a true statement.

The crew in front of the aircraft on the homepage photo makes me think of the Coast Guard or Navy before thinking of CAP.

As for photos, the Photoshop department must have gone home for the night. The same photo of the three cadets in black T-shirts is used as the banner photo on every other page on the site, whether it's the cadet, adult, pilot, clergy, history, etc. page.

Disappointing.

Mike

[A.Member]

"Upon further review..."

Aside from the cosmetic reorg of the home page, which I rate as 'OK' (certainly an improvement over the previous one although I would still change a few things around the banner area),  there actually is little to applaud with this update.  Many of the problems were listed here already so there is no need to restate them. 

Bottom line:  The site is in need of serious help.

Question:  Is there no QA?  No acceptance testing prior to moving to prod?  I don't understand how this stuff continues.

[DakRadz]

Why is Donate more prominent than joining?  And when you click on Donate, do we really have to be subject to this hideous and absolutely ridiculous graphic? 
That's just ridiculous.  It makes us look even worse than amateur hour (because even amateur graphic artists today would recognize that as embarrassingly messed up).  It makes us look like amateur hour 1997 and conveys a message that we're some fly-by-night operation.  If that (along with wording that's misleading and legally incorrect) instills donor confidence, rather than important information about what the money will be used for, why it's important to donate, how much money we need, and third-party validation like a CharityNavigator rating icon, well then I can imagine why we're getting ZERO donations through that portal. 

I gagged.
Good thing I haven't had breakfast today. I thought you were joking, so I followed the (multiple, seriously? How hard are we going to make it to donate to our organization??) linkies, and then- Bam.

Pink? With a little heart? Really?

It isn't even Photoshop. It's MS Paint, and even that can do better...

[sardak]

Some improvements have occurred on the website.

The Happy New Year graphic and link to Wikipedia have been replaced by a decent CAP action photo with a link to the NCSA  page.

The three small mission graphics are now linked to pages describing the three missions of CAP.

The 67th anniversary reference has been taken out of the message from General Courter.

Mike

[davidsinn]

Some improvements have occurred on the website.

The Happy New Year graphic and link to Wikipedia have been replaced by a decent CAP action photo with a link to the NCSA  page.

The three small mission graphics are now linked to pages describing the three missions of CAP.

The 67th anniversary reference has been taken out of the message from General Courter.

Mike

It looks like I was right and it's a work in progress.

[a2capt]

I wonder if they are reading here, and acting on this 'feedback' .. now those two links at the bottom, the whole thing "Already a member?" and "Interested in Membership?" should entirely be links, either as if it were an imagemap or use the CSS to have a style that does not do any changes on hover or href.